Posted on 08/27/2009 12:47:54 PM PDT by Borges
BUCHAREST, Romania - At first, fans politely applauded the Roma performers sharing a stage with Madonna. Then the pop star condemned widespread discrimination against Roma, or Gypsies — and the cheers gave way to jeers.
The sharp mood change that swept the crowd of 60,000, who had packed a park for Wednesday night's concert, underscores how prejudice against Gypsies remains deeply entrenched across Eastern Europe.
Despite long-standing efforts to stamp out rampant bias, human rights advocates say Roma probably suffer more humiliation and endure more discrimination than any other people group on the continent.
Sometimes, it can be deadly: In neighboring Hungary, six Roma have been killed and several wounded in a recent series of apparently racially motivated attacks targeting small countryside villages predominantly settled by Gypsies.
"There is generally widespread resentment against Gypsies in Eastern Europe. They have historically been the underdog," Radu Motoc, an official with the Soros Foundation Romania, said Thursday.
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Re Madonna: It is the height of arrogance to lecture her audience who didn't come to listen to her moralizing but to hear her sing. And like so many of these Hollywood airheads, she has no idea what she is talking about.
Actually, the pit bosses love these girls at the tables. They dress provocatively and flirt with the guys, all night long. It keeps conventioneers playing longer. The girls and the casinos are basically doing the same thing, extracting money from tourists. It took me a while to figure this out.
“The group says Roma face “overt discrimination” in housing, health care and education.”
In Slovakia many gypsies get free apartments from the city council which they usually trash and have an “open toilet” in one corner of the room, they get free health care and education yet too often they fail to send their kids to school instead they send their kids to beg and steal on the streets. So where is the “overt discrimination?’
Madonna will discover that this culture is unfathomable, impenetrable, because it has at its heart a celebration of the virtue of swindling the "Gaijo". It's not immoral to them any more than hunting for meat is immoral to us. And Gypsies are rarely violent in their predations.
A Gypsy might well find these words that offend you to be complementary, if they cared at all for the expressed opinions. They are not a grievance group for the simple reason that you are "unclean" to them and they would not delve into the kind of community organizing that would be necessary to make them a grievance group.
I know nothing about European Gypsies, but when I was growing up in a small U.S. town and anyone spotted Gypsies entering town, the word went out instantly. All the businesses and homes locked their doors and Gypsies were not allowed to enter. They had a reputation (and well deserved) as being artful thieves. Simply put, they sustained themselves through theft.
Weren’t the Gypsies in this country conmen/Grifters.
Aren’t they the ones who come to ask if I want my driveway *oiled* down?
I can’t stand those guys.
Traveler, I think, not Roma.
Why would eastern URPeans be biassed against pick pockets and thieves.. and scammers.. WHY?
Tell me, what is your favorite Gypsy cuisine? Stories? Poetry? What do they like to name their pet cats?
It’s not prejudice. It’s admitting that they steal and swindle for a living.
Truth is generally considered a legal defense against a claim of libel.
So to the extent these charges are true they cannot be libelous.
Or, to put it another way, if you want to have the charges accepted as libelous you need to show why they are untrue.
Well she spoke Romani fluently.
I was known as the "gaguo". Or "the one not of our tribe". lol
She was a blast, very intelligent and street smart.
Gosh I miss her.
Well, then, I’m wrong. Not much Rom (or even Romanian) spoken among the Irish “Gyspsies” here in the south. The fair coloring threw me off.
Oddly enough, I was attacked in Rome by a band of gypsy children. It is common for them to surround someone and then start trying to steal your wallet, watch, handbag, etc, and then scatter with the loot. They hang out at trains stations, bus stations, etc. all over Europe employing the same technique. I have lived in Italy, Germany, Greece, Poland, and Finland. Except for Finland, there are varying numbers of gypsies, most of whom are involved in crime of one sort or another. They are coming mainly from Eastern Europe.
In the Czech Republic the picture is similar: the country's 300,000 Roma, about 2.5 percent of the country's population, have a 70 percent unemployment rate. They also have significantly higher crime rates than the non-Roma population, and few finish high school.
Buying a ticket to see a pop performer is not like buying a ticket to the opera or symphony with a registered program of what will be performed and what will be said. "You takes your chances" as the saying goes. Pop performances are about the performer as much as the music. If you don't want the extras you should stick to CDs.
And so do the performers. I saw the video and Madonna was pissed that the audience booed her. LOL. So it works both ways. She shouldn't be surprised by the reaction. I walked out of a Duran Duran performance, along with some others after they started their antiwar tirade against Bush and our involvement in Iraq. I won't ever go to one of their performances again.
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